According to a survey of university faculty at Russian universities, conducted by National Research University - Higher School of Economics in November 2011, a substantial proportion of them pay for their texts (research papers and conference proceedings) to be published. In particular, about 40% of 2800 respondents reported that they made payments in a range of USD 30-800 related to the publication process within last year, and about a third among those who pay, spent more than USD 150. One might say that these numbers are not big. However, compared to low faculty salaries these expenditures are not that small.

Who should govern universities? Should the best scholars sacrifice their career as researchers and govern academic institutions or should professional managers provide the experience of running healthy and competitive business? This question is currently discussed in different countries and across different academic cultures.

During my last trip to US last week I had very “impressionist” experience. It was partly due to the a chance to visit National Gallery in Washington where a beautiful collection of impressionism masterpieces is now on display but mainly because our group had very short but fruitful visits to several universities in Washington, DC., Baltimore, New York and Boston.The main purpose of our visit was to study experiences of various universities in creating, implementing and maintaining university-wide learning management systems.